Normal Life
by Extitential.Panoramic.Veiw
Summary: After the giant war Percy has to go back to school, he stuggles to make freinds and is only passing his classes for Annabeth. He makes freinds with a shy girl named Melinda and its a strange freindship, she's amazed by how much he get's in trouble for things he hadn't done and Percy learnes how to be normal again. :)
1. Chapter1- Alone

**1460 words (07-07 2019)**

Percy walked into the kitchen, his mom was cooking breakfast and Paul was getting ready for work.

"Morning Percy." Sally said.

"Good morning"

"If you want a ride, you're going to have to hurry up I'm about to leave." Paul said.

"No it's fine I'd just make you late."

Paul nodded, "Alright." He hugged and kissed his wife goodbye, and left the apartment.

"Percy honey," Sally walked over to him. "I have a meeting with my editor this morning. Make sure you get to school on time."

"Okay mom" Percy said, he sounded exhausted but it was more than that, Sally could tell. Mothers instinct.

"What's the matter?" She asked hugging Percy.

"Nothing, nothing." Percy mumbled into her shoulder. Sally raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced.

"Just nightmares."

"Prophecy type?" Sally worried.

"No, no just memories, and stuff that happened during the wars."

Sally sighed into Percy's arms, she leaned against him gently. He was so grown up now. He'd been through more than Sally could imagine. "It will be alright Percy, I know this... everything, has been so hard on you and your friends but, I promise it will get better."

Percy sighed into her hug. He loved his mom's hugs they were his home, where he belonged. Where he felt truly safe.

Sally pulled away. "And call Annnabeth after school." She said with a smile.

Percy nodded to her matching her smile, "I love you mom"

"I love you too baby. Now I have to leave or my editor will get worried. And you have to go to school." She said with a grin, grabbing her coat and purse. Then she turned around, rushed back to the counter to stuff a stack of papers she'd nearly forgotten, into her purse

"Bye mom, good luck!" Percy said with a mouth full of eggs.

"Don't talk with your mouthful!" Sally laughed. "Have a good day Percy!"

"I will!" And Sally stepped out of the apartment.

Percy sighed the smile rinsing off his face after his mom left. He finished his breakfast, then packed up his bag with unfinished homework, and rushed to the door, then back around the apartment turning off the lights. He locked the door on his way out and made sure riptide was in his pocket.

On the walk to the bus stop he thought about the dream he'd had that night. It had been about Annnabeth, of course. During the Titan War, when she had taken the knife for him. He's been having this recurring dream about her dying that day. For about a week and a half, every time he closed his eyes he saw her, blond hair splayed out on the ground in a pool of her own blood. So many of his friends had died in that war, his greatest regret was not being able to saving them. Along with all that he still had occasional dreams about Tartarus, sometimes even panic attacks. The memory of that place ate away at Percy's life and energy, he didn't know how much longer he could do this.

The last time Percy had a panic attack it had been in the bathroom at school. He'd locked him self in a stall for half a period and sat there trying to breathe. He'd seen someone fall down the hall stairs and had been nervous to go up stairs for his next class. Which sounds pretty dumb but he kept seeing Arachne waiting there to drag him down or pull Annnabeth in. Like they were back on the cliff over the pit, except he was alone at school surrounded by judgmental teens. That was a while back. Anything and everything seemed to trigger him these days. Loud noises, yelling, screams, doors slamming; he always seemed jumpy and on edge.

Percy had to run when he saw the bus pull up at the city bus stop. He made it just on time, a bit of luck. Fifteen minutes later he was walking through the halls at school. Avoiding people, heading straight for his locker. After four failed attempts to unlock his locker he finally got it, and grabbed the books he needed for his morning classes, L.A. and Leadership.

Yay fist period Language Arts. Percy thought, more words he couldn't read and people who didn't understand that. Mrs. Walker talks too much about stuff that's not important so when she says the important stuff Percy's not listening anymore. She drones on about metaphors and similes nearly every class. Percy's evidently not the only one annoyed that Mrs. Walker won't shut up.

Finally in leadership, they were presented with the project of making posters for various events including the bake sale and mismatch socks day. Percy isn't exactly thrilled but what the heck, it's better than actually having to organize an event. He ends up working with a really shy girl who barley seems to have an opinion about anything. She doesn't seem to be much of a leader even though this is 'leadership'.

This whole project doesn't seem like the type of thing that needs to have partners but the teacher is insistent of teamwork. So Percy sucks it up and tries to work with his partner. He learned that the shy girl's name is Melinda, and she seems pretty normal. She has straight red-brown hair, pale blue eyes and wears pastel colored clothes. Mel's super quite but she has very pretty hand writing. They decide she will do the writing and Percy will do the coloring, which is fine by Percy.

Time flys by Percy and Mel barely talk and it's getting very awkward, Percy can feel the levels of uncomfortableness rolling of Melinda in waves. When the lunch bell rings he sighs with relief and realizes class is finally over.

Percy buys his lunch and sits down along the back wall of the cafeteria. He sees Melinda from his leadership option sitting at a table with people clearly not giving a damn about her.

He sighs and takes a bite of his sandwich, a couple are kissing at one of the table near Melinda. All of their friends were teasing them and laughing. A small smile washed over Percy face. He thought of Annabeth, she was so busy rebuilding the camps and catching up on her designs for Olympus. His smile faded, he hadn't seen Annabeth since Christmas brake.

After the bell rang Percy only had to get through 2 more periods without falling asleep.

-•-

Literally nothing happened all afternoon and Percy's classes were a bore just as he suspected. He glares at a kid who kept bumping his desk last period as he walked back to his locker. Ready to pack up and leave when he realized he had detention from a incident that happened last week.

He'd nearly gotten in a fight after gym class, with this stuck up kid who kept poking fun at him that class behind his back. It had seemed hilarious to his friends all class. Percy had been trying to control his anger because this guy was not worth his time. They had been walking back to the change room and Percy heard the guy say something about his scars. At that point Percy had been trying to ignore them but he couldn't anymore so he spun around and told the guy if he had a problem Percy just to say it to his face. Percy accidentally scared the sh*t out of the guy. And had been sent to the principals office for his display of overly aggressive behavior.

It wouldn't have been that bad, two days of detention. Until Percy sassed the detention teacher. It had been a reflex after the teacher had said something rude and ignorant. And that's how he landed himself in detention for a week and a half.

Detention was boring as hell but ironically the kid who had been trash talking Percy last week was here too. Thankful he left Percy alone and that was fine.

That's sort of what Percy wanted; for people to just leave him alone. Gods too. No one understood him, no one wanted to be his friend or even acquaintance. He was generally fine with that as long as he passed his classes for Annabeth, Percy couldn't care less about school. Even so it's hard for Percy to leave things alone when people are so obviously scared of him. He'd seen Melinda go pale in leadership when she saw she'd have to work with him. He knew he scared demigods too because of his powers of fighting abilities, and even that scared him. Percy never wanted to be feared but now random people at his school who he'd never met were scared of him. That really bothered him sometimes.

**Hey, so I've been thinking about ****this for a while, I've read other story's with OC's and usually their terrible so I don't have high hopes for this. BUT I am going to try my hardest to make this not terrible because I like mortals meeting Percy type story's. Thanks for trying this if you hate it or it's too hard to follow, tell me why or just don't keep reading. **

**And don't forget to breathe :) **


	2. Chapter 2- Plan

1291 words

The rest of Percy's week was was a bit of a blur. Wednesday was his last detention. Percy managed to not fall asleep every class, mostly for fear of suddenly waking up and cutting someone's head off. Riptide couldn't hurt mortals but he still worried.

The only highlight was leadership, as it turns out; as shy was Melinda was she was also very nice. She was too socially awkward to be mean to Percy which was fine with him. He'd stared joking around with her a bit in class in an effort to make her smile. Her face had gone bright red, and she'd started giggling.

Percy learned Melinda's last name was Bates and she liked to read. He'd said he wasn't really one for reading because of his dyslexia. Mel had also told him she was an only child and Percy had smiled sadly and said he was too, then his eyes widened and he smiled brightly. He excitedly told her how his mom was pregnant so he would have younger brother or sister sometime later that year.

Melinda was very indecisive she clearly hated making decisions Percy could relate to he thought of himself as a terrible leader yet he'd lead two wars. Melinda was nearly useless when it came to making decisions, so of course Percy ended up deciding a bunch of things about their project which were undoubtedly terrible ideas.

He and Melinda sort of began to bond over their posters; drawings of pies and mismatched socks. They weren't really friends but neither of them really had anyone else.

That's why Friday at lunch instead of sitting down against the wall at the back of the cafeteria Percy gathered up his courage and went over to where Melinda sat.

She was alone, reading a hard cover blue book.

"Hey," Percy said just loud enough to be heard over the noise.

"Oh," Mel looked up. "Hi." She blushed a bit.

"Umm, can I sit with you?" Percy said shifting awkwardly.

Mel nodded moving her lunch so he could sit next to her.

They sat in silence for a bit until Percy said. "When do we have to finish those posters for the leadership project?"

"I think the bake sale ones have to be up on Monday."

"Should we finish them over the weekend?"

Melinda nodded, unsure.

"Do you want to come over to my apartment to work on them?"

Melinda giggled, blushed then looked away, "I uh I sort of thought we were just going to- umm I- I have to ask my parents. I think we could do it at my house though."

"Oh that's fine." He bites his sandwich. It was terrible, all the food from the cafeteria was terrible. He would have made a lunch to bring but he hadn't had time last night and had woken up late again this morning.

Melinda has quinoa salad, it smelled really good. The first time Percy had tried quinoa was at camp, Annabeth and Grover had spent nearly all lunch explaining it to him and trying to convince him to try it. In the end he tried it and ended up really liking it. Percy really missed Grover, they hadn't seen each other since Grover had been at camp right after the giant war.

Melinda pulled a piece of paper out of her binder and wrote her name her phone number and address. She handed it to Percy.

"Right." Percy said a bit flustered, "I forgot I didn't know your address..."

"I think I'm good for you to come tomorrow." Melinda said quietly.

"What time should I come?" Percy asked.

"Uhhhh I don't know maybe ummmm." Melinda blushes thinking fast.

Percy senses her panic and says, "How about one?"

"Yeah okay." Melinda answers in relief. She sat there in a state of terrified, anxiety. For the rest of lunch, she barley touched her food. Her stomach was in knots.

After lunch not much happened for the rest of the day Percy had only seen Melinda once in the hallways and she hadn't noticed him. He was sort of excited because Melinda might be his friend. He didn't have any mortal friends, except Rachel and she barely counts as a mortal friend. He barley ever had mortal friends, Grover had been his first proper friend and he turned out to be a sayter.

It was nice to look forwards to seeing her at school and sitting with Melinda at lunch next week and working with her in leadership.

Percy wasn't trying to be creepy weird about this but he didn't want to be alone. He hadn't made much of an effort to make any friends at school he'd forgotten how it felt to not be alone.

He was anxious but thrilled to be seeing her over the weekend. It wasn't like seeing you're crush, Percy knew all about that from spending years with Annabeth before they got together. He'd never even thought of Melinda in a romantic way. He was just anxious that this would be his only chance to make a friend this year. So he wouldn't have to be alone everyday, every lunch spent sitting against the back wall on the floor.

Percy wondered what Melinda thought of him. If she had a crush on him or if she hated his guts. He just needed a friend, being alone was so terribly depressing and he was already dealing with a lot of depressing things.

Percy was so hopelessly in love with Annabeth, he needed her an a way he'd never needed anyone before. It wasn't a sexual need it was just that Annabeth understood him like no other person ever could. Saying he was cheating because his only school friend was a girl was wrong. Percy barley knew Melinda, friend was a very loose description of their relationship. At this point for all Percy knew Melinda could hate him and was just too polite to say anything.

After school Paul gave Percy a ride home and after a snack Percy started on his homework. He had piles of homework from his missing year. He felt like he was drowning in catch up work. He started editing his lord of the flys essay. He knew it was terrible and he'd have his mom and Paul look at it, but they'ed try to fix everything and he'd end up having to change it all. Since Paul was an English teacher and sally was writing a novel they were both a little too helpful when in came to English work.

Percy was so tired of everything, he was tiered of failing everything. Even if he was passing his classes they all knew he was barley making it.

Percy worked late into the evening before finally packing his stuff up and getting ready for bed. He had no intention of sleeping.

Annabeth had Iris messaged after dinner and Percy had excused himself promising to help clean up later. He talked to Annabeth for nearly an hour, she had been having dreams again. She said they weren't that bad but Percy knew she wished he was there to help her. Percy wished he was with her too, as much as he hated bothering people especially Annabeth with his problems. He wanted to cry into her arms and just lay there with her. He wanted to smell her soft strawberry sent and feel safe.

Annabeth's dreams had been about the Arai, the curses. She kept seeing Percy die at the hands of those creepy old granny's. Their claws ripped his skin and cures pieced his soul.

Percy wondered if the torment of the pit would ever end. If they could

ever get over it. At this rate he doubted it.

**Hey so what's up I meant to post this a week ago but then I went camping and had no wifi so...**

**I hope you have a great week! :) **


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